Hysterectomies Being Performed Needlessly in 70% of Cases

This shocking revelation comes by way of Reuters Health News Feb. 14, 2000 issue. The article reports on a recent study published in the February issue of Obstetrics & Gynecology and done at the University of California in LA. In this study researchers looked at nearly 500 women who had hysterectomies for reasons other than emergency or cancer. Of these, the researchers reported that about 70% of them were judged to be inappropriate.

Some of the reasons given for judging them inappropriate was because many of the patients did not have an adequate evaluation before the surgery to determine if other types of care would be better. In a politically kind comment the researcher stated, "We found that the care leading to recommendations of hysterectomies in our cohort was suboptimal."